1489: Fernando del Pulgar on a Mamlūk Threat Against the Catholic Monarchs

Abstract

While they were besieging the city of Baza in 1489, the Catholic monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, received an embassy. Two Franciscan friars brought a series of letters addressed to the pope, in which the Mamlūk sultan of Egypt addressed the grievances suffered by the Muslims of Granada because of the war waged against the Naṣrid emirate. Moreover, he threatened to retaliate against the Christians living in his dominions if the Catholic Monarchs did not cease their aggression against Granada immediately. So far, scholarship has interpreted these menaces as the pure rhetoric of a Mamlūk sultan who presented himself as the global defender of Muslims, but was aware of his inability to carry out their threats. By considering the diplomatic use of threats as a tool of political communication, this article argues that threats constituted an important element in Christian-Muslim diplomatic relations in the medieval period.